Here’s a post from five years ago that I wish had generated more conversation… I wonder if it will this time ;)

Linking to Geoff’s “Creativity in Theological Education” post and then watching the brilliant presentation (in just 20 minutes) by Sugata Mitra the Indian “Hole in the Wall” man (on TED) “Can kids teach themselves?” has got me thinking (again) about how we do theological education the wrong way round.

[By the way if you have only heard about Sugata Mitra’s work it is well worth spending 20 minutes to watch the man himself, whether you agree with him or not, he is a fine presenter!]

He calls his suggestions “outdoctrination” because they are the opposite of indoctrination. In indoctrination a teacher who “knows better” tells a student the answers. Most theological education is built from the ground up on an indoctrination model. Teachers (or possibly the school boards who govern the teachers – quis custodiet custodes) decide the curriculum. They then decide how it is to be taught and how success is to be measured. Students then are fitted into this mold. Evidently, despite our efforts to steer clear of “imposing” our conclusions on students, this is indoctrination. After all, though we may seek to avoid imposing answers, we did impose the questions!

Why not a system designed the other way up. Start from real issues and situations and get teachers to assist students to learn what they need/want to approach these issues. There would be severe difficulties creating “suitable” learning outcomes, and perhaps worse ones working out how to measure them – but I suspect the real measure of success would be seen when students “leave college” and really start to learn!

[I suspect Dr Mitra, a professor of Educational Technology at Newcastle, thinks his work only applies to kids, and that adults are too far calcified in the context, but I wonder, humans have more capacity to make do and adapt, I believe that even “mature students” can still learn if we offered them “minimally invasive theological education”!]